Movie Review: Saving General Yang (2013, Pegasus Motion Pictures/Well Go USA)

...considering the human virtues examined and upheld, there's more than great appeal and compelling intrigue, when partaking of Chinese films, which depict the best...and sometimes, the worst of man's nature. His strengths... weaknesses... ideologies... flaws... passions... sacrifices. Time and time again, Asian cinema has wrought keen focus on their historical figures and heroes...Wong Fei Hung...Hung Hei Kwoon...Fong Sai Yuk...finding them much more relatable and inspirational than invented fictional characters. And in a nutshell, that's the major juxstapositioned key to these films' invariable appeal; if one finds one's self unable to relate to these characters, or feel the sense of how real these persons actually were, then the overall substance in the events portrayed becomes minimal...even non-existent. Regrettably, such is the case with the latest dramatization of one of China's most famous historical war tales, and the fraternal band of warriors, associated with the legendary tale...told a number of times, in the past, but here, rendered with all the grandiose visual spectacle of a major war epic...but with little substance...generic, fleeting and dramatically unembraceable...